Most small business owners don't like to be distracted from their passion with the nuts and bolts of internet marketing. Hire an expert to build the website. When the webhost or domain name subscriptions are due, pay them and get back to the fun work! But do you know when your webhost and domain name subscriptions are due? (Often they won't be up for renewal at the same time.) Who receives the notification that your subscriptions are up for renewal? If you aren't receiving the notification, you're taking a BIG risk. This is particularly true with your domain name registration.
What's the worst that could happen if you don't renew your domain registration before it expires? First, your website will disappear from the internet. Second, you'll have to pay a reinstatement fee of at least $25 to get your domain name back and the renewal fee will probably be at least twice as high as it was last year. Third, you could lose your domain name to a hijacker. The hijacker will be happy to sell the domain name back to you for an exorbitant price, sometimes as much as $2000 or more.
If you don't want to pay the extra fee for a private domain registration (I don't), there's another good reason keep track of your domain subscription expirations and registrar. You will probably receive phishing* emails from scam companies offering to renew your domain name registration for quadruple the typical fee. I often receive inquiries from my clients regarding these renewal emails. ("I have a notification about my domain name renewal. Didn't I just pay this?") If you know the name of your registrar and when the domain registration will expire, you'll know to just send these emails to the internet ether. Your domain name registrar will typically send you a renewal notice 30-45 days before your domain name registration expires and your registration fee should be less than $20/year for a .com, .net or .org. (If you're paying more than $20 per domain name per year, you're being ripped off.) If you receive an email with a renewal rate of over $60, just hit delete.
If you don't pay for your webhosting subscription on time, the consequences generally aren't as drastic. Your website will go dark until you've paid the annual subscription. You might miss some early payment discounts but that's about as bad as it gets.
I provide all my website development clients with a list of the companies used for their website and SEO with logins, passwords and comments. If you don't have a list for your website, ask your website consultant to send you one and be sure that it includes the webhost, domain name registrar and any email accounts such as Gmail or Yahoo. This information is your property. You've paid for it.
One of my favorite literary passages is from Tom Robbins' "Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates" when Switters derides the compulsory routines of "showering, shampooing, shaving, and flossing and brushing his teeth". I cringe at "housekeeping" chores – filing, balancing my bank statements, filing, dusting, styling my hair and putting on make-up, filing, sorting the closets, etc. Keeping track of website related subscriptions is another annoying little bit of business housekeeping. However, when you consider how much time and money is saved by ensuring that you are the primary recipient of subscription notifications, you might reclassify the time spent as an investment. If not, you can go back to Switters/Robbins. "There's birth," he grumbled, "there's death, and in between there's maintenance."
Next on MT Nerd, great free investment resources that can be had for the cost of an IRA account.
.